RBSC

**Sir X** · June 20, 2009, 08:46 PM

"LEST WE FORGET"

JAMAICA'S PART IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

BY Lt Col R M Laing

The First World War, or 'Great War' as it was known at the time may have receded into the distant past but still remains in living memory to our elder citizens and especially the very small number of veterans - all now in their 100's - who remain alive today.

It may not be fashionable today to recall that the years up to the start of the Great War in 1914 represented the height of the Colonial era, but the fact remains that most West Indians of all races were very loyal to their King and Empire, to such a degree that no less than 243 Officers and 10,168 Men from Jamaica alone departed these shores to the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East between November 8th 1915 and May 26th 1918. "Every man who went from Jamaica to the front was a volunteer", stated Frank Cundall in his book 'Jamaica's Part in the Great War' published in 1924. Sadly, some 1,000 Jamaicans failed to return home, victims mainly of the fearsome German artillery on the Western Front at Ypres in Belgium and on the Somme in France.

Not all died as a result of enemy action, however. Too many West Indians succumbed to pneumonia brought on by the cold and wet European climate as well as other diseases such as mumps and measles to which they had little immunity. Shamefully, some clearly died of neglect due to the lack of warm clothing that was not issued to the early volunteers, resulting in many cases of frostbite on one troopship where the heating had failed.

In all, some 11 Battalions were raised from the Caribbean to form the 'British West Indies Regiment'. The First Battalion was formed from volunteers from Guyana (then known as British Guiana), Barbados, Trinidad, St Vincent and Grenada. Most other volunteers came primarily from Jamaica, but also The Bahamas and Bermuda. Three battalions (1st,2nd and 5th) fought with great distinction in Palestine and the Middle East, winning many decorations for bravery. One battalion was stationed at Taranto in Italy (11th) and all the others were sent to the Western Front where they played a vital support role as labour battalions, mainly employed in the resupply of artillery ammunition.

As a West Indian and former Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, I have just returned from a visit to the Ypres Salient on the Western Front in Belgium, where I visited the graves of over 100 West Indians, mainly from Jamaica, who lost their lives in this terrible conflict. There are over 160 graveyards for the Ypres salient alone, all beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Each man, regardless of rank, has his own headstone, on which is engraved his name, rank and number, together with his Regimental badge and a few words chosen by his family. Where the soldier's identity was not known, the gravestone is inscribed, "A Soldier of the Great War, known unto God"

These cemeteries vary greatly in size, but all are places of great dignity, serenity and peace, the land they occupy having been given by the people of Belgium to the Commonwealth nations, in perpetuity. I was privileged to visit 114 West Indians' graves and I picked one, at random, to lay a Cross of Remembrance in honour of all members of the Regiment who died on the Western Front. At the grave of Lance Corporal Forsythe, from Jamaica, who died on 29th September 1917 and is buried at the Menin Road South Cemetery, I laid the Cross on which I have inscribed;

" The British West Indies Regiment, to all ranks on the Western Front;
Far from home, Rest in Peace. From Lt Col R M Laing ,
A West Indian"
Spoken Tales of History

Mutiny is one of the last untold stories of World
War I, told by veterans themselves.

Thousands of West Indian men had to campaign for the right to fight on behalf of King and Country, but by the end of the war, they were leading an extraordinary mutiny, in protest at the way they were treated by the white officer elite.

After the mutiny, the government feared the unrest that the veterans might cause on their return to the Caribbean colonies, so over 4,000 former soldiers found themselves displaced to Cuba where many would spend their final days.

Clifford Powell (aged 110), Eugent Clarke (aged 106) and Gershon Brown (aged 101) speak of their service with the British West Indies Regiment during World War I. And for the first time on television, the mutiny at Taranto and its long-term repercussions are revealed.

Stripped to the waist and sweated chest
Midday's reprieve much needed rest
We dug and hauled and lifted high
From trenches deep toward the sky
Non-fighting troops and yet we die
-From 'Black Soldier's Lament'

15,600 men of the British West Indies Regiment served with the Allied forces. Jamaica contributed two-thirds of these volunteers, while others came from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas, British Honduras, Grenada, British Guiana (now Guyana), the Leeward Islands, St Lucia and St Vincent. Nearly 5,000 more subsequently volunteered to join up.
© Imperial War Museum
In Palestine and Jordan the BWIR saw front-line service against the Turkish army; in France, Egypt and Italy the men served in auxiliary roles.
Out of a population of 1,700,000 in the Caribbean Colonies of the British Empire, over 1,200 were killed or died, while more than 2,500 were wounded.
81 medals for bravery were won, and 49 men were mentioned in despatches. Their Own Stories
Winston Churchill Millington: British West Indies Regiment
Top of page
Winston Churchill Millington was born in Barbados in 1893. In 1897 he moved to Trinidad with his father, who was a teacher. In 1911 Winston started working at a secondary school in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad. He was one of the first to volunteer for B Company in Trinidad, which along with soldiers from Guyana, Trinidad, St Vincent, St Lucia, Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas and British Honduras would form the British West Indies Regiment. In December 1916 they sailed from England to Alexandria, in Egypt, on their way to fight in the Palestine Campaign.The Palestine Campaign was far away from the main conflicts of the First World War in Europe. However, the battle here against the Turks was a vicious affair because, according to Winston Millington, “the Turks were ferocious fighters.” It was not long before the machine-gun crews of the West Indian regiment were tested out. They were sent into action against a large body of Turkish soldiers and showed great coolness and self-discipline under fire.
The commanding officer of 162 Machine-gun Company praised the work of the West Indian gunners:
"The men (in the machine-gun section) worked exceedingly well ... showing keen interest in their work, cheerfulness, coolness under fire and the ability to carry it out under difficulties."
General Allenby also highlighted the machine-gun crews’ outstanding achievements. He wrote to the Governors of Jamaica and the other British West Indian colonies:
"I have great pleasure in informing you of the excellent conduct of the machine-gun section of the BWIR during two successful raids on the Turkish trenches. All ranks behaved with great gallantry under heavy rifle fire, and contributed in no small measure to the success of the operation."
In these battles a number of soldiers distinguished themselves through their bravery. One of them was Winston Millington. When the Turks attacked, the rest of his gun crew were killed by enemy fire, but Winston continued to fire his gun for several minutes. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his gallantry and coolness in action.

**Sir X** · June 20, 2009, 08:52 PM

**Sir X** · June 20, 2009, 08:53 PM

No one got saved though

**Sir X** · June 20, 2009, 09:09 PM

'There were no parades for us'

<LI class="third-party-tool no-comments ">Buzz up!
Digg it

Simon Rogers
The Guardian, Wednesday 6 November 2002
Article history

More than four million men and women from Britain's colonies volunteered for service during the first and second world wars. Thousands died, thousands went missing in action, and many more were wounded or spent years as PoWs. But until now their sacrifice has been largely ignored by the mother country they fought to protect. As the Queen opens memorial gates in their honour today, Simon Rogers talks to five unsung heroes.
The first world war veteran
George Blackman, age 105
4th Battalion, British West Indies Regiment, 1914-1919
George Blackman leaps up, brandishing his walking stick. "Like this," he breathes, imitating the thrust of a bayonet. "Like that," he says, mimicking the butt of the rifle. "I still got the action. I'm old now, but I still got the action."
George is 105. When he was born in Barbados in 1897, Queen Victoria was on the throne and two-thirds of the world was coloured pink.
He points to a scar above his left eyebrow. "That is a bayonet cut on the eye." He touches his hands. "This is from the blow of the rifle butt."
George is almost certainly the last man alive of the force of 15,000 who rushed from the beauty of the Caribbean to the mud and gore of Flanders and the Somme to defend king and country during the first world war. His old comrades are all gone now - the last, Jamaican soldier Eugent Clarke, died earlier this year at 108. When Blackman goes, that will be it.
Sitting in his niece's house in northern Barbados, Blackman is now partially blind and almost deaf. Anita tidies his shirt collar for him as we speak. He is still articulate and energetic, and his fiercest remarks are reserved for England. "I need help but the English government don't help me with nothing," he says. "It's she, she who give me this," he says, gesturing to Anita.
This bitterness has been growing deeper over the years. There was a time when he would have done anything for the mother country. In 1914, in a flush of youth and patriotism, he told the recruiting officer he was 18 - he was actually 17 - and joined the British West Indies Regiment. "Lord Kitchener said with the black race, he could whip the world. We sang songs, 'Run Kaiser William, run for your life, boy'." He closes his eyes as he sings, and then keeps them closed for the rest of our interview.
"We wanted to go. Because the island government told us that the king said all Englishmen must go to join the war. The country called all of us."
Enthusiasm for the battle was widespread across the Caribbean. While some declared it a white man's war, leaders and thinkers such as the Jamaican Marcus Garvey said that young men from the islands should fight with the British in order to prove their loyalty and to be treated as equals. The islands donated £60m in today's money to the war effort - cash they could ill afford.
While Kitchener's private attitude was that black soldiers should never be allowed at the front alongside white soldiers, the enormous losses - and the interference of King George V - made it inevitable. Although Indian soldiers had been briefly in the trenches in 1914 and 1915, Caribbean troops did not arrive until 1915.
The journey to Europe was perilous - hundreds of soldiers from Jamaica succumbed to severe frostbite when their troopship was diverted via Halifax in Canada. Their winter uniforms were left locked up while they froze in thin summer clothes.
When they arrived, they often found that fighting was to be done by white soldiers only - black soldiers were assigned the dirty and dangerous jobs of loading ammunition, laying telephone wires and digging trenches. Conditions were appalling. Blackman rolls up his sleeve to show me his armpit. "It was cold. And everywhere there were white lice. We had to shave the hair there because the lice grow there. All our socks were full of white lice."
A poem written by an anonymous trooper, entitled The Black Soldier's Lament, showed how bitter the disappointment was:
Stripped to the waist and sweated chest
Midday's reprieve brings much-needed rest
From trenches deep toward the sky.
Non-fighting troops and yet we die.
Yet there is evidence that some Caribbean soldiers were involved in actual combat in France. Photographs from the time show black soldiers armed with British Lee Enfield rifles, while there are reports of West Indies Regiment soldiers fighting off counter-attacks - one account tells how a group fought off a German assault armed only with knives they had brought from home. Blackman - who was born to a white mother from London and a Barbadian black father - still remembers trench fights he fought in, alongside white soldiers. "They called us darkies," he says, recalling the casual racism of the time. "But when the battle starts, it didn't make a difference. We were all the same. When you're there, you don't care about anything. Every man there is under the rifle."
He remembers one attack with particular clarity. "The Tommies said, 'Darkie, let them have it.' I made the order: 'Bayonets, fix,' and then 'B company, fire.' You know what it is to go and fight somebody hand to hand? You need plenty nerves. They come at you with the bayonet. He pushes at me, I push at he. You push that bayonet in there and hit with the butt of the gun - if he is dead he is dead, if he live he live."
The West Indies Regiment experienced racism from the Germans as well as the British. "The Tommies, they brought up some German prisoners and these prisoners were spitting on their hands and wiping on their faces, to say we were painted black," says Blackman.
He didn't make friends. "Don't have no friend. A soldier don't got friends. Know why? You believe that you are dead now. Your friend is this: the gun. That is your friend."
At the end of the war, after years of hard fighting, not only against the Germans but also the Turks, men of the West Indies Regiment were transferred to a British army base in Taranto, Italy, where one of the bitterest events of the war would occur - a mutiny. Days were tough there and comprised largely of manual labour such as loading ammunition, or even cleaning clothes and latrines for British soldiers. Blackman, who was not there long, remembers it being hard. "From Marseille, it was seven days to reach Taranto. It is a seaport - all the boats were coming from London with ammunition. We have to unload the boat, the train come and we got to load the train to take the ammunition up the line."
For some of the black troops there, a pay rise for the white soldiers - but not them - was the final indignity. Riots ensued and senior British officers were assaulted. Eventually the mutiny was put down, with one soldier executed and several others given lengthy jail sentences. But the black soldiers were left with a new-found feeling of rebellion.
The immediate result was that the West Indies troops were kept away from the victory parades that marked the end of the war, and hurried home under armed guard. "When the war finish, there was nothing," says Blackman. "I had to come and look for work. The only thing that we had is the clothes and the uniform that we got on. The pants, the jacket and the shirt and the boots. You can't come home naked.
"When we got home, if you got a mother or father you have something, but if you're alone, you got to look for work. When I come I had nobody. I had to look for work. I had to eat and buy clothes. Who going to give me clothes? I didn't have a father or nobody. Now I said, 'The English are no good.' I went to Jamaica and I meet up some soldiers and I asked them, 'Here boy, what the government give you?' They said, 'The government give us nothing.' I said, 'We just the same.'"
And that's when Blackman disappeared off the veterans' radar. Travelling around South America, he worked as a mechanic in Colombia, before retiring to Venezuela to live with his daughter until the Barbados government helped to bring him home earlier this year.
As a Barbadian living in Venezuela for decades, he was not entitled to a pension there. The Barbados government (in the form of one dedicated civil servant) is still processing his application for one in his home country. And from the British? Nothing.
The empire changed when Blackman and his comrades returned from France. The soldiers who emerged were so politicised that island governments encouraged them to emigrate to Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela. Those who returned to their countries altered everything. Gunner Norman Manley, who had seen his brother blown apart in front of him during the war, eventually took Jamaica to independence, becoming its first prime minister in 1962.
A secret colonial memo from 1919, uncovered by researchers for a Channel 4 programme on the Taranto mutiny, showed that the British government realised that everything had changed, too: "Nothing we can do will alter the fact that the black man has begun to think and feel himself as good as the white." In a sense, history was rewritten. That meant no celebrations, no official acknowledgment.
For George Blackman, the situation has become even more simple. "England don't have anything to do with me now. England turned me over." He opens his eyes - they are almost blue. "Barbadians rule Barbados now."
The pilot
Mahinder Singh Pujji, age 84
Squadron leader, Royal Air Force
Mahinder Singh Pujji is one of the 2.5 million Indians who left their homes during the second world war to fight for a country they regarded as the motherland. Many ended up giving their lives for Britain, but the sacrifice they made barely registered in either Britain or India.
Pujji is 84 and lives in a neat flat in sheltered accommodation in Gravesend, Kent. Ramrod-straight, he greets us in RAF tie. He is a product of empire - his father was a senior officer in the colonial administration. Born in Simla at the end of the first war, he remembers growing up in the Raj as a "wonderful time".
"It's very difficult for you to understand," he says. "Today, we say India or England, but then it was just one."
After college in Lahore, he learned to fly, and when war broke out saw an advertisement: "Pilots needed for Royal Air Force." "I could have joined the Indian Air Force any time I wanted to - but I was quite comfortable in a civil job which was well paid and for a British company. But this was an opportunity for me to go abroad and see the world."
He was among 24 Indians accepted immediately for training and to develop "the manners that are required of a commissioned officer". It was August 1940 - the height of the Battle of Britain. "We were all experienced pilots. Among us were very famous Indian pilots. They were the pioneers who had flown solo flights from India to London and created records.
"I was very happy. My salary doubled and in one month's time I was on the boat to London. As officers, we were entitled to first class. I had a cabin of my own and I thought, 'This is worth taking any risk.'" He was just 22.
Even in training, Pujji insisted that he be allowed to fly with his turban, unlike many other Sikh flyers - and he is probably the only fighter pilot to have done so. "I thought I was a very religious man, I shouldn't take off my turban. The British people were so nice and accommodating. They respected that. I had a special strap made to hold my earphones. I used to carry a spare turban with me so I would have one if I got shot down."
In wartime Britain, Pujji became used to being a curiosity. "On one occasion, I was driving through to Bath and a traffic policeman in the centre of the traffic saw me in my car and he just froze in amazement."
But everyone was kind to the RAF officer. "Everybody was lovely and wonderful. In the evenings we would have VIP treatment. They wouldn't let us pay for tickets in the cinema and in restaurants we got sugar [which was rationed]. People saluted me and called me sir."
During the Blitz, bombers attacked London every night. "I was impressed with the courage of the English people - there was no panic. I used to watch movies - the screen would go blank for the air-raid warning. People were told, 'If you would like to go to the shelters, please make your way out now,' and nobody would get up. I was really amazed at how brave these people were."
Pujji trained to fly Hurricanes, less glamorous than a Spitfire but loved by their pilots for their manoeuverability and heavy-calibre weapons. "Inside a fighter plane it's very cramped - there's not much room for movement. There's a big panel in front of you. There's an oxygen mask - you are not used to it. It irritated me and I would often fly with it off."
Of the 24 pilots who came over from India, eight were considered suitable for fighters, including Pujji. The odds against survival were high. "Among these fighters, six were killed in the first year I was here."
He was posted to 258 squadron, near Croydon, south London. "Once, 12 of us went escorting bombers over occupied France. I was enjoying the flight. Then suddenly I saw beautiful fireworks around us - it didn't dawn on me for a couple of seconds that they were firing at us from down below. In ignorance I was enjoying it.
"The squadron split up. Very soon I was alone. I looked in the mirror and saw German fighters. The Messerschmitts were very fast, but the Hurricane could turn a tight circle. Either they hit us straight away or just missed us. It was thrilling - maybe I am an exception, but I was not scared."
The increasing casualty rates hit his squadron hard - two or three pilots would disappear every day. And every day, the group captain would come in and ask for volunteers for the day's operation. "I could see how brave these young pilots were. Everybody would raise their hand. They knew they would not all come back. Every evening, there would be two or three less people at dinner. But by breakfast, they would be replaced, and so it went on."
Pujji almost became a casualty himself several times. On one occasion his badly shot-up Hurricane nearly crashed into the English Channel, and Pujji was advised to ditch in the sea by the "nice English girls" in the control room. "But I couldn't swim, you see. I carried on until I saw the white cliffs of Dover and I thought, 'I'll make it.' The aircraft was a total wreck - I was dragged out and I heard voices saying, 'He's still alive, he's still alive.' Because my eyes were closed I couldn't see. The padding of my turban saved me - it was full of blood. I was taken to the hospital but after seven days I was back to flying again."
After hundreds of missions, he was posted to the north African desert, and then to India, fighting rebels on the Afghan border. Posted to Burma, he ended up in one of the fiercest conflicts of the war. Flying in a reconnaissance squadron, Pujji's task was to search for and attack Japanese troops. "I saw a small column. I would be flying very low and they would hide. I would go up so they would come out again and dive back and open all my guns," he says. "It happened very often. I felt elated. Now I feel very bad when I think about it. I was very cruel. I am responsible for killing many Japanese."
By this time, it was 1944 and he was effectively commanding a squadron which became known as the "eyes of the 14th army". On one occasion he located a lost troop of 300 US soldiers, saving their lives. He became one of the few Asian pilots to be awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Soon after the war he married, only to discover he had TB. "I was told I had six months to live. I said I had one request - send me back to my home. I want to be with my family." Back in India, he recovered - despite what the doctors had told him. From then on, his life reads like a Boy's Own adventure tale: he flew racing planes across India; he won gliding championships and flew with Nehru, India's first prime minister.
Eventually, he stopped wearing his turban, partly because it got in the way, partly because he felt different about religion. "My father said, 'You have lost your religion,' but for me, I wanted to cut off my hair."
When his career finished in 1974, he finally retired to Kent. "When I retired, I had to settle down somewhere and I had such a wonderful impression of England from the 1940s, I thought, 'I'll come here.' I was allowed to enter the UK as the government's 'honoured guest' in 1974 - which I found out was very rare."
He has lived here ever since, even after his wife's death. But his enthusiasm for Britain is not quite what it was.
"Now, the man in the street thinks every Indian is illiterate. Once I was driving in town and I had to pick my wife up - it was a double yellow line. And this young policeman started shouting at me, as if I was stupid. Then I saw him across the road with a white driver being very polite. I didn't want to tell him I was an officer - he would have saluted me during the war.
"This is not the England I knew - but maybe if my story is told, then people will remember us and what we have done."
The sailor
Allan Wilmot, age 77
Royal Navy, Royal Air Force
It was 1941 when Allan Wilmot enlisted in the Royal Navy - he was forced to lie about his age to get in. "I was 16 and they wanted men - so when men are wanted, they turn a blind eye. We Jamaicans were pro-British. We felt British. When war broke out, it was a case of the mother country's in trouble and needs your help. And help was given, without a second thought."
The Caribbean was a hazardous place for the vital shipping which plied its way to England with supplies and motor oil via the Panama canal. Wilmot found himself on a mine-sweeper on convoy escort duty, picking up survivors as cargo vessels were torpedoed in front of them. One of a dozen Jamaicans on board, he says racial distinctions quickly blurred. "On a small ship you become a family. You depend on each other - you're all brothers. There's no room for discrimination - in three minutes you could be at the bottom of the sea. Being the youngest one, I was more or less a mascot."
In 1943, he enlisted with the RAF for motor boat duty, which involved picking up ditched airmen and laying flight paths for flying boats. He soon found himself in England. At first, the welcome was complete. "When we landed at Liverpool, an air vice-marshal came to meet us. He said, 'Thank you very much chaps, for coming to help us.' That didn't last. After the war it was, 'Thank you very much. Goodbye.' The English were very, very curious about us. In Jamaica, we knew everything about the British empire. But over here, they knew absolutely nothing. Once your face is black, you must come from Africa. We said, 'We are from Jamaica,' and they would say, 'What part of Africa is that?'At first we thought they were taking the mickey when they asked us, 'Where did you learn to speak English?' or 'Did you live in trees?' They didn't have a clue."
After the war, Wilmot was turned down for the merchant navy and headed back to Jamaica. "There were no victory parades, no preparations made. The British government thought it was up to the Jamaicans, the Jamaicans thought it was up to the British."
After a brief period as a customs officer, he returned to England in an old troopship with other ex-servicemen. He became one of the first six black postmen in Britain. "When we were out on collections, the crowd used to gather, just to see us."
Now he is the vice-president of the West Indian ex-servicemen and servicewomen's association. He still feels there is a need for the stories of servicemen like him to be told. "What we need is official recognition," he says. "The memorial gates are a start."
The engineer
Chanan Dhillon, age 79
Colonel, Indian Engineers
Chanan Dhillon grew up in a small village in the Ludhiana region of India in the 1930s. "Our lives were very strenuous, our school was about four-and-a-half miles away with no roads and before we got to the school, we had to water the cattle and buffalos. At that time boys went to school to be a revenue official. I didn't know I was going to be a soldier."
As it turned out, Dhillon proved to be a talented athlete and was spotted by British officers. Sitting in his daughter's house, not far from Heathrow, the 79-year-old colonel says: "I came up to this rank [thanks to] British officers who liked me because of my talent as a hockey player. I will always remember one Captain Radcliffe-Smith. In one of our hockey tournaments, we had a hailstorm and we got drenched. I was not carrying a coat or anything - we were village boys - he came and put his coat over me. Within six months he recommended me for an officer commission."
At the outbreak of war, Indian regiments were immediately mobilised. Dhillon's sappers were sent on a grand tour of the British empire - they first marched through what is now Iraq, before going through Iran to North Africa.
"We heard that there was a big battle at Tobruk. We reached Al Dhaba airfield and then Marsamatru, the last line of defence."
Tobruk was a disaster for the British, with Rommel's army advancing rapidly through the desert. "By the time we reached there, our column had already started retreating. We had to defend the line - we had a ring around us. Our armoured force couldn't hold there.
"We started retreating at midnight - we could see the German convoys. We went into the desert so that we could cut through the ring surrounding us. We were under attack all night and trying to fight our way through. They had motorcyclists armed and were driving at us. By daybreak, one of our vehicles was hit - all the soldiers died."
His soldiers were forced to surrender and were taken on a troopship towards Italy. But then, a torpedo struck the boat 40 miles from the Sicilian coast. "Our ship went down within 20 minutes," he says. "There was panic - people didn't know what to do. The Italian guards had lifejackets, we had none. When the captain ordered them to get off the ship, we fought hand-to-hand for those life jackets."
Surrounded by the drowning and the wreckage of the boat, Dhillon was pulled from the sea by German sailors. "When a ship drowns, the sea becomes very furious. I always thought I would die, but I was still striving to live."
He was taken to an Italian prisoner of war camp. The relaxed atmosphere of British, Australian and Indian prisoners was conducive to one thought: escape. "We could socialise in the evening - and we would plan what to do. We wanted to escape and we were engineers. The British were very enterprising. They started a tunnel." Digging the tunnel gradually, night by night, they broke through.
"One day, 40 prisoners escaped and I was one of them. It was bad luck - with our turbans, we couldn't be mistaken for Italians. I was arrested again and put in a cell for 14 days. It was a very harsh punishment."
That could have been the end of Dhillon's war. But it was 1942, and the Italians were about to capitulate. Dhillon and his fellow Indian prisoners were taken to a camp in Germany, Limburg, near Frankfurt. Dhillon was put in charge of the now-segregated camp's Indian soldiers, organising activities and welfare for the prisoners. He says the German authorities respected the Geneva convention, even if the soldiers didn't. "One of my NCOs was told to unload munitions. He refused to do it because I had told him only to do work not related to war effort. A German threw a grenade at them, killing them all.
"I demanded to see the site straight away. Five prisoners had died. They were all Indian. The guards were arrested - and court martialled."
Repatriated to India on the brink of independence, he married before fighting again - this time in the contested region of Kashmir. Now, after 37 years in the army, he has plunged himself into ex-services welfare of 500,000 veterans as chairman of the Indian ex-services league in Punjab.
He feels now that many of his comrades were ignored on their return from Europe and the desert by both the UK government and the hastily-arranged new Indian government. Many of the British veterans ended up living in poverty. "I came to VE day here [in Britain] in 1995 and there was no mention of the Indian forces. I wrote to John Major to complain.
"A country or a nation should be grateful to a soldier - a soldier should be treated as a special human being."
The intelligence officer
Weerawarnasuriya Patadendige Jinadasa Silva, age 91
Major, Ceylon Light Infantry
'I had a boarding school education, read the Boy's Own paper, and I read Shakespeare," declares "WPJ" Silva. "Of course we felt English. Particularly going to boarding school. We knew more about English history than our country's history. It's not the best thing, but that's how we were."
Born into a well-off family in what was then Ceylon, Silva fell into the army by accident. "It was through another member of the club I went to," he says. Prewar Ceylon had only a part-time army; Silva joined as a territorial in 1936, although he remained determined to pursue a civilised career in the civil service. "We had to be ready. We had training after office hours in barracks. Once a year we had a camp in the hill station where all the others from the whole country came. It was very hard working but very jolly." Witty, urbane and intelligent, it's easy now to imagine the 91-year-old veteran in the role of British officer - the "W" in his initials was assumed by the English officers to stand for William, so he became universally known as "Willie".
It wasn't until the fall of Singapore in 1942 that Ceylon was truly under threat. Silva still recalls the sight of wounded British soldiers straggling into Colombo. "They got there whatever way they could. They lost their arms and uniforms. They lost their clothing - everything. It was sad to see them in that shape. For some weeks, they were walking about dazed, poor chaps. How they escaped I don't know."
Suddenly in the front line, and a harbour for British battleships, attack by the Japanese was inevitable. Willie Silva was put in charge of the defence of Trincomalee harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world. "It was the Clapham Junction of the east," says Silva. "Ships had come through the Suez canal or South Africa. Most of them had to go to Colombo for refuelling, for loading and unloading. Ceylon was a centrepoint, and the defence of it was very important. I remember seeing the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary both berthed side by side there - a very rare sight. The harbour was so enormous, they didn't look big at all."
When the air assault finally came, it was nearly catastrophic. British ships were sunk and Silva's troops, protecting the camouflaged guns on the hillside, had to hide in slit trenches under orders not to reveal their positions. "I lived purely by accident, purely by that chance," he says. "There were tons of planes over the harbour and we could even see the Jap faces with their goggles. Two of my men were injured during that raid - they were too fat to get to the slit trenches. They caught a splinter and shrapnel, but instead of feeling sorry for them, you couldn't help laughing."
But clever intelligence had done its trick - the Japanese believed the harbour was much better protected than it was and never again attempted a full-frontal assault.
Progressing through the ranks from sergeant to lieutenant, he eventually became a military intelligence officer, preparing briefings for the army's senior commanders in the area. It was a reluctant Willie that took up this role, because he didn't want to work directly under the British. "My feeling as a proud Sri Lankan was very British but we also have our own tradition. We have a written history of 2,500 years, unbroken. When you were a Roman colony, we were an important country," he says. "But then I went, and I loved it - I never looked back from then. I was the only Sri Lankan out of 70 officers. Was I treated as an equal? Absolutely - I liked them, they liked me and we got on very well."
After the war, Ceylon finally achieved independence, becoming Sri Lanka in 1948. Silva progressed through a role as recruiting officer, to aide-de-camp to the island's governor general. In the late 1950s, he became the Sri Lankan senate's equivalent of Black Rod. By any standards, he was an important man on the island. But he didn't stay.
Working for the UN world veterans' federation, Silva met and married an English woman, an interpreter, and moved to Britain where he worked as a civil servant. The circles they moved in were civilised and polite. Asked if they have ever experienced any discrimination as a mixed-race couple in the 1960s, both hotly deny it, something Silva emphasises has been a feature of their life together. Now a Member of the British Empire, he says he feels at home in south-east London. "My street is very quiet, very nice," he says. "I like it here. I even married an Englishwoman. It's quite natural for me to live here, feeling English, and not feel a foreigner at all."
· To contact the British Commonwealth ex-services league, write to: 48 Pall Mall London SW1Y 5JG. The West Indian ex-servicemen and servicewomen association is based at 165 Clapham Manor Street London SW4 6DB. For information on the Memorial Gates Trust, email: srenton@mgt.demon.co.uk. Squadron leader Pujji talks about his experiences at: guardian.co.uk/audio.
• This note was added on Thursday December 11 2008. George Blackman, profiled above, was not the last Caribbean veteran of the first world war; at the time this article was published there were at least two surviving members of the British West Indies Regiment: George Blackman and Stanley Stair of Jamaica. George Blackman died in 2003; Stanley Stair lived until 2008.

**MdmeX** · June 22, 2009, 10:14 AM

Gunner Norman Manley, who had seen his brother blown apart in front of him during the war, eventually took Jamaica to independence, becoming its first prime minister in 1962.

Perhaps, the writer should really have researched all the facts. Norman, never became Prime Minister.

RBSC

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Saving Private Ryan was a Movie , Its a true story in JA !

Saving Private Ryan was a Movie , Its a true story in JA !

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